Haven City
Political history ; Intensification and founding of the KG * For nearly 300 years, the war with the Metal Heads has been at a stalemate. * The Metal Heads gradually become more aggressive, launching attacks on remote Haven City mining operations, such as the various drill platforms. * Damas inherits the throne during this time. He fails to do much about the increasing attacks, trying to convince people that the Metal Heads are purely going after their resources rather than trying to resume attacks on the city itself. * Many become impoverished as a result, or turn to lesser paying jobs, because working at the drills and mines becomes too dangerous. * Damas is blasted as weak-willed, and there are whispers of dethroning him. The leader of the Grand Council of Haven City, Count Veger, demands that Damas take action. ** The Council is charged with holding the House accountable, ensuring peaceful transitions of power when an heir takes the throne, and is the legislative and judicial body of Haven City's government. * To appease the Council and the people, Damas inaugurates the Krimzon Guard, the city's first organized military (prior to this, Haven's armed force consisted purely of volunteer militias). * This is received very well on all sides, and Damas appoints a Lieutenant, Baron Praxis, long-time member of the Peerage House as a life peer. ** Damas and Praxis were also long-time friends, having served in the same militia since their late teens. Damas had a fatherly relationship with Praxis' daughter Ashelin. ; Damas' dethroning * To further repair his legacy, Damas planned an attack on the Metal Head Nest, as retribution for their increasing attacks. Praxis warns him against this, saying it was too early and they were unprepared. * Damas disregards the warning, embittering Praxis. In fact, Damas decides to lead from his throne, letting Praxis take charge on the front lines. * Riding the wave of excitement following the founding of the KG, the council and the people support Damas' plans. Part of the reason Damas disregards Praxis' warning is because of this—he couldn't turn back on his word now. ** This causes Praxis to lose confidence in Damas as a ruler, and plants the seeds for Praxis' bid to dethrone him. * The attack is launched, and the MHs destroy the KG. Praxis is severely injured and rushed back to the city. * After Praxis rehabilitates, he begins campaigning against Damas, and gradually gains the support of the Council and the people. Damas sees this as betrayal. * Praxis plots with Veger to do so, and plans are made for Praxis to rule as a regent in the absence of a new heir from the House. * The Council facilitates the transition of leadership, and Praxis' first move as new ruler is to banish Damas from the city for the KG blood on his hands, and as revenge for the damage he himself sustained during the battle. ** This estranges Ashelin from her father, as she did not want to see Damas banished. ** His second move was to promote a promising cadet, Torn, who he treated more like a son than he treated Ashelin as a daughter. Torn and Ashelin were romantically linked, and while Torn appreciated Praxis' respect, he sided with Ashelin in her bitterness against her father. ; Praxis' iron fist * Some of Damas' loyalists follow him to the Wasteland, though others stay behind to keep Praxis in check. Among these are the Shadow, a long-time veteran and the former leader of a militia that Praxis dissolved as part of a wide-ranging ban on militias (claiming the KG made them unnecessary). * Many in the city questioned how the city was supposed to be kept safe within without the militias, who also kept crime, etc. in check. As a result, Praxis reconfigured the KG to also act as the police force. However, this only corrupted the KG further, and Praxis developed a reputation for ruling with an iron fist. * This narrative was primarily pedaled by the Shadow, who also spearheaded a political party against the illegitimate rule of Baron Praxis, who was not a hereditary member of the House of Mar. The Council "allowed" it since he was an appointed member, and was only technically a regent in lieu of an heir (of which Damas was the last). * Praxis, in order to secure his rule, struck a deal with the Metal Heads, wherein he would relinquish the Sacred Site, so long as they only attacked the city enough to justify his continued rule. This also had the benefit of destroying where the Shadow lived; in the old hut, which he pledged to safeguard. * The attack occurred, and Praxis ordered his men to stand down, claiming that they should all retreat behind the new wall he was building. While many understood this was to keep everyone safe, others knew they had to protect the city section with their life. Many civilians died, although the Shadow did manage to save the hut and repel the attack. ; The Underground * The Shadow pedaled a conspiracy theory that Praxis intentionally relinquished the section, and many believed it. Praxis declared the Shadow public enemy number 1, inspiring the creation of the Underground, an illegal militia inspired by the Shadow's old militia. * However, when it came to matters other than the war against the Metal Heads, the Shadow was a pacifist, and did not seek to disturb the peace, even though he was a political enemy of Praxis. The Shadow did not endorse the creation of such an Underground, but sought control of it so it didn't do anything foolish, as he felt responsible for those acting on his behalf. * Torn, Commander of the Krimzon Guard, was one such person, who the Shadow promoted to Lieutenant of the movement, overseeing the recruitment of all personnel. ** Torn was partly motivated to do this out of his affection for Ashelin, who hated her father and spoke highly of the Shadow. Torn wasn't aware that Ashelin didn't want it to go that far, although because of her affection for him, she often helped the Underground as an informant. * The Shadow also solely entrusted to him the authorization of any attacks against Praxis, and the unspoken understanding was that it would rarely ever happen. The Shadow held Torn accountable to any guerilla attacks that he deemed unwise. ** Because of this, Torn was extremely picky of who he admitted to the Underground, and would try to keep his men busy with pee-wee tasks like racing to steal the Baron's old pennant from the top of the ruined tower in Dead Town. * While Torn managed the operations of the Underground, the Shadow turned his focus to more political matters, occasionally keeping in contact with Damas, the facilitation of which was accomplished by Ashelin (driving him to and from the Wasteland secretly, under the pretense that it was "Krimzon Guard business"). ; A new heir * Damas eventually had a child, who he named Mar as he exhibited qualities of the prophesied Chosen One. (However, the Shadow recommends calling him by a pseudonym so he stays on the down-low, and suggests "Jak". Damas refuses out of pride and a desire to remind everyone that his son is the true heir. Samos later calls young Mar "Jak" when he takes him to the past, knowing that him thinking his name was "Mar" would cause problems when he went back to the future.) This caught the attention of Veger, a self-proclaimed Precurian disciple. Veger began designing experiments based around the Chosen One's ability to awaken and communicate with Precursor technology. * Furthermore, Veger grew increasingly uncomfortable with Praxis' iron-fist rule, and in fact at one point became intimidated by him. So, Veger plotted to kidnap Mar from Damas, as a means of keeping Praxis in check. * Veger brought Mar to the city, and informed everyone of a long-lost heir who had been found. He displayed young Mar's fledgling Chosen One-esque abilities as proof via his experiments. He then started threatening Praxis of dethronement since he has an heir, if he did anything to further threaten the Council. * Praxis left the Council alone as a result, however, his deal with the Metal Heads from earlier was no longer valid: the deal was that the Metal Heads would have access to the Sacred Site, which the Shadow prevented. * Praxis thus agreed to relinquish all but one of their Drill Platforms, saying they could feast on any eco that each platform had dug up. Eventually this ran out, and the Metal Heads demanded a cut from any eco they harvested from the last remaining drill platform, as well as eventual full access to the strip mine after the eco wells had successfully tapped into the subterranean dark eco. * Praxis had a caveat, however. He in fact demanded that they increase their attacks on his city, in order to scare the people from wanting to put young Mar on the throne instead of him. The Metal Heads of course obliged, and that became the status quo. * Ashelin eventually found out about this deal, which further estranged her from her father. However, she withheld the information from the Underground for the time being, as she did agree that putting a child on the throne would only make matters worse. * The discovering of young Mar solidified the Shadow's use and need for his Underground militia. He renewed the Underground's stated mission as protecting the child and reinstating him as the ruler of Haven City after toppling the Baron's forces. ** However, the Shadow was conflicted. He knew Damas longed for his lost son, but at the same time saw Mar's institution as ruler as better in the bigger picture. This estranged the Shadow and Damas, while Damas also shut out Ashelin who was caught in the middle of it all, as she couldn't commit to helping Damas reclaim his son. At some point she mentions that Damas' son is the only thing keeping her father in check. ; Dark Warrior Program * Praxis eventually devised an experimental program to create elite warriors via dark eco. * Veger disagreed, thinking light eco was the key, specifically having young Mar in mind as the prime example. * Eventually, Kor took Mar from Veger, disguised as a human Underground agent. * This leads to the events of Jak II. Random additions to work in somewhere * Praxis had a motivation to ensure a proper heir would never be born, so he sends assassins to kill any woman his spies report as possibly being Damas' love interest. One such assassin was Sig, though Sig had a moral qualm with doing this, and confessed to Damas why he was sent, also exposing one of the spies. Damas executes the spy, forcing Sig to take his place and in fact spy on those in Haven. * Damas also ensured that Jak's true mother would remain a secret and sent her far away after Jak was kidnapped, for fear that she was in danger. This was the story behind Damas' line in Jak 3: "Much has been sacrificed in this war so that others may live." * The first round of whispers of Damas' dethronement should be presented as leading up to his dethronement, so the audience should think "ah, so this is how it happened". Then he institutes the KG and all seems well and good. Rollercoaster effect. * Ashelin tries to use Torn's interest in her to convince him to see the error in her father's ways, to little effect, as Torn did not want to disappoint Praxis, who took him under his wing, etc. etc. That is, until Torn sees Praxis' evil ways for himself. At that point it was too late, as Ashelin then had more of a "I told you so and now it's too late" attitude. This is why they appear kinda estranged in Jak II. Ashelin also kinda has an arc where she feels dethroning her father is hopeless, and she sees the metal heads as the greater of two evils, and thus continues to help her father and doesn't officially join the Underground. However, she does cooperate with them in specific ways she believes is for the greater good on a case-by-case basis. * While Praxis is erecting the wall, it should be treated as a highly sensitive/classified operation, and one of the subjects of an "episode" should be the Shadow demanding to know what it was for. The reason for the secrecy is that it's a wall that blocks off an entire section of the city, which would seem suspect (especially since it's the section within the Shadow's "domain", since it has his hut, it's the site around which the city was originally built, it's where Damas' old palace resides, is rumored to be where Damas loyalists/anti-Praxis politicians congregate, etc.) This detective arc should have a mystery vibe to really play up the reveal that it's to prepare for the oncoming attack. The Shadow shouldn't fully realize this until he sees swarms of metal heads approaching on the horizon (or actually, maybe Ashelin tells him the day before? Urges him to reconvene his old militia?), realizing at that point that the KG are likely going to fall back, Praxis would close the gates off to innocents, and that he would have to stay behind and fight off the attack himself. The Shadow would quickly convene his old militia, in doing so committing a crime. However, he would save countless innocents, so it wouldn't look good on Praxis to prosecute the Shadow for it. But he would use his influence (friendship with Veger) to impeach the Shadow from all public offices, stripping him of his title and command, etc. * Assuming the timeline works correctly around this, it'd be interesting if this was the event that caused Torn to defect. * When Praxis officially dethrones Damas by force, he plants his banner at the top of the palatial tower (the one Jak steals in Jak II).